Chapter Two
Micah steered his sedan onto the front street of Noah’s apartment building. He barely squeezed in between two cars and watched as a flock of people entered and left the building.
Looks like the traffic here hasn’t stopped, he thought. He had considered this apartment three years ago when he moved back to Seattle from D.C. He remembered admiring how lavish the display model looked when the leasing woman gave him a tour. The high vaulted ceilings had definitely been a selling point, and the buffed hard wood floors gave it such an original look, that Micah had applied for the apartment that same day. It turned out that he had been the fifteenth person to apply that day, and the thirteenth person was the one that got the apartment.
Micah strolled into the lobby, nodding at the door man. He ran his hands through his head full of dirty blonde hair. His eyes drifted over to a balding gentleman, and he shook off a shudder. ‘I don’t know how Alridge does it.’
The elevator arrived and he stepped in. Casual piano music drifted out of the speakers and Micah relaxed and leaned against the wood paneling inside of the elevator. When he arrived at his floor, a loud and cartoonish DING went off, and he stepped out into a hallway with squeaky linoleum floors.
He glanced at the text on his phone’s screen: 304. He walked down a row of apartments, and they climbed in numbers. Soon, he passed 303 and found himself outside of 304. He knocked twice. There was some fumbling that could be heard from behind the door as Noah undid his deadbolt. The door opened and revealed a warmly lit living room. Micah enviously admired the vaulted ceilings and Noah’s furniture.
Micah’s own apartment was a sad bachelor pad in comparison to Noah’s. Where there would have been a ‘loved’ navy blue sleeper sofa, there was a maroon colored L-shaped sofa. A round glass coffee table was in front of it. Noah smiled and closed the door as Micah stepped in.
“You have questions all over your face.”
“Your place is just really nice. I’m wondering how you can afford all of this?” Micah followed Noah into the kitchen, and Noah grabbed a bottle of wine from his wine rack.
He unscrewed the cork and said, “I’m a high-class hooker on the side. I’m reasonable. I’m exceptionally good at saving, Micah. Get a grip. I bet your place is twice as nice.”
“No, it looks like a shithole. It looks like a thirty-year-old divorced man lives there who’s too cheap to get a maid to come out a couple of times a month.”
Noah laughed and handed Micah a glass of red wine. Micah examined Noah’s smile in what he could only interpret as more envy. ‘He’s got some of the best teeth that I’ve ever seen.’
They walk over to the sofa and Noah finished half of his glass. “I’ve got some food on the way for us. I hope you like chicken pad Thai.”
Micah swirled his wine in his glass and reclined on the sofa. “You took my date joke seriously.”
Noah cackled and rolled his eyes. “No, I like to feed my guests. You’re cocky.”
There was a sharp knock on the door and Noah jumped up and grabbed some cash from his wallet. He walked over to the door and a petite girl handed him a large greasy bag. “Thank you so much, Erica,” he said, and handed over the wad of cash.
Micah’s stomach rumbled at the smell of the chicken and noodles. Noah handed him a pair of chopsticks and set their meals on the coffee table.
As Micah began to dig in, Noah said, “So, I talked to Augustina’s husband and daughter today.”
“Really?”
He slurped his noodles. “Yeah. They reaffirmed that she was loved throughout the neighborhood and the community. The husband barely held it together through my questions. Their adult daughter, Charlotte, answered a lot of my questions.”
Micah took a big gulp of wine. “Yeah, I guess we have to give the man another day or two to accept that his wife is gone. It can be rough.”
Noah pulled the wrapper off of his spring rolls. “Yeah? You think it feels as bad as an awful divorce?”
“Nah,” Micah replied. “A divorce is worse in some ways because they specifically don’t want you. You have effectively chased another human being off to the court so that they can announce to the world that they made a gigantic mistake.”
“Is that what your wife did?”
Noah got up and walked to the kitchen and returned with the wine bottle.
Micah held his glass out, and as Noah filled it, Micah sighed. “Something like that. I will admit that I chased her off at first. I had a really bad case, my first case as detective. I found out that I had sent the wrong man to the electric chair. So, I started staying out late, and she didn’t mind that so much.”
“So what did she end up minding?”
“The cocaine. The large quantity of it, the way I’d do it before work to keep myself from swallowing a bullet. It got bad enough that I missed work and Alridge was sympathetic. He’s always been sympathetic to my shit. Adrianna put her foot down, though. I did rehab for three months, and I came home, ready to repair our marriage. It turned out that the divorce papers had been sent to the facility three weeks before I was going to be released, but they never got to me.”
“So, you guys got divorced?”
“Oh, yeah. Right after I met her new boyfriend. Some teacher she’d met while I was in rehab, and I pounded his face in. Then I broke a lot of her shit. Then I divorced her.”
Noah digested this as he watched Micah clear the bottom of his styrofoam box.
“That’s rough. I hope this case doesn’t do that to me.”
“It won’t. You’re too.... I don’t know, sweet, for that. I was already a little rotten.”
Noah sighed. “I just wish we had more leads.”
“The leads will come. Just relax and stay sharp in the meantime.”
Micah took a long sip of wine. “I guess I should slow down on the wine. Anyway, did anything like that ever happen to you?”
“Divorce?” Noah asked, and Micah nodded.
“No, nothing like that. It just became legal for me to get married like, three years ago. I did just get out of an awful relationship though.”
Micah wiped his fingers off on the napkins. “What did you guys fight about?”
“The same things a straight couple does. Money, jealousy, family. I left him because he refused to present me to his family and just about everything else. We were together for three years, and he told me that he wasn’t even sure if he was fully gay. Obviously, he was gay enough to regularly fuck me.”
“Was the sex.... good?” Micah asked.
Noah chuckled. “Just as good as straight sex.”
“Okay, well.... was it...uh.”
I just have so many questions. Was it painful, is it clean, who’s the girl, who finishes first? Micah thought, despite feeling growing embarrassment because he felt that if he didn’t look insensitive and invasive, then he looked stupid.
Noah took on a completely serious business expression. “If you want to know what gay sex is like, you’re going to have to let me do it to you.”
“E-Excuse me?” Micah sputtered.
Noah nodded. “I can’t really explain it, but I can show you. At least three times before midnight,” he said, glancing at his phone.
“Are you saying you want to—”
“Did you do so much cocaine a few years ago that you can’t recognize a joke, Micah? I mean sure, I’d love to show you what it’s like one of these days, but no pressure. Relax. If you get a fear boner, we’re totally using it.”
Micah checked his phone and shook his head. “I’m getting sleepy and if I sleep here you might peek at how big my dick is—big. By the way, I’m going to head home. We’ll go over our notes some more tomorrow?”
“Sure. Drive safe.”
Noah got up and walked him to the door. Micah left and waved on his way out and pressed the elevator button down the hall. He stepped back into an empty box that crooned old songs on a piano and sighed.
I didn’t get to ask him any of my questions. The only knowledge I’ve gained is that Noah would fuck me if given the chance. He paused and waited for a feeling of revulsion or embarrassment. Neither arrived. It’s not too much different from any person I’m not interested in hitting on me. He’s still a person. He just has a dick. But, he’d fuck me?